


now there's just an empty space

by restless5oul



Series: yesterday we were just children [3]
Category: Formula 1 RPF, GP2 Series RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mentions of Death, Needles, So much angst, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 21:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11768415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restless5oul/pseuds/restless5oul
Summary: there were supposed to be some things death couldn't touch. pierre learnt that wasn't so.





	now there's just an empty space

**Author's Note:**

> yikes i'm sorry this is so mean. also like, two fics in two days?? who am i??
> 
> you can totally read this fic alone, but reading the rest of the series will kind of make it make more sense.
> 
> thanks for reading <3

At first all he saw was foggy shapes, sliding in and out of focus, inaudible shouts ringing in his ears, making his head spin. His arms and legs felt heavy, like they were filled with lead, and as hard as he tried he couldn’t move. He strained to see something, to hear anything, but his cloudy mind slipped back under into darkness.

The second time he woke it took a few seconds for his eyes to came into focus, though eventually the blurry scene in front of him materialised, a white wall with a single light shining from it. No, not a wall, a ceiling. As the feeling returned to his body Pierre felt that he was lying on his back, a scratchy blanket tucked around him tightly, trapping his body against the hard mattress. His head still felt heavy as he tried to lift it, trying to get a better look at his surroundings, still not able to recognise where he was.

Pressing his hands to the mattress he tried to sit himself up but was hit by a wave of nausea that forced him back down. In the distance he could hear the sound of footsteps, a door opening and tentatively Pierre turned his head to see someone rushing towards him, only their torso and legs visible from the angle he was looking at.

“Pear,” a voice said, a voice he would recognise anywhere, anytime, no matter where they were.

“Stoff,” his voice was crackly and tired as he forced the words from his dry mouth, but for a moment the pain was secondary to the feeling of his hand in his, and the arm around his shoulders that was helping him in a sitting position. Burying his face into Stoffel’s chest he was overwhelmed by relief that he was here, and he was alive and Pierre could feel his heart beating in his chest. He didn’t think anything else mattered to him in that moment. For a few seconds all he cared about was the distinct way Stoffel spoke French as he whispered into his hair, his lips pressing to his forehead, and just feeling him _there._

It was only when Pierre moved to wrap his own arms around Stoffel that he felt something was wrong. He twisted in Stoffel’s embrace and saw that from his wrist to his elbows, on both of his arms, a tight white bandage had been wound round them, several times over, making it difficult to move or bend his arms. That explained the heaviness in his limbs. But in his confused, half asleep state, he wracked his brain to find the memory of when he had done that, but drew a blank. Stoffel was saved from having to answer his inevitable barrage of questions by the appearance of another figure at the door.

“You’re awake,” Pierre couldn’t see who had just spoken, and he didn’t recognise the warm Australian accent at first. That was until the person came into view and he saw that it was Mark. He didn’t know the man very well, but he definitely knew him well enough to feel a surge of warmth towards the older man, taking comfort in his smile and the way he leant down to ruffle his hair, showing just how worried he had been. He also guessed that it was Mark’s house he was at, which would explain why he didn’t recognise it, and where they had gotten the bandages from – no doubt excess from Mark’s job as a paramedic.

But it didn’t explain how he had got there. Or why he was currently lying in Mitch’s godfather’s house feeling as though he was waking up from a year's worth of sleep. The thought of the small Kiwi made him perk up, turning his head as though he might jump out from behind Mark at any moment.

“Is Mitch-?” he tried to ask, but the roughness of his throat made him cough violently, and a glass of water was thrust into his hands, which he drank quickly, probably a little too quickly, most of it ending up down his chin. It helped soothe his mouth only a little.

“He’ll be back later don’t worry. He’ll be glad to see you’re awake,” Mark told him with one of those reassuring smiles that seemed to be speciality. Still feeling a little fuzzy, Pierre hadn’t fully recovered from the assault on his senses and the apparent gap in his memory. Stoffel’s arm around him helped to ground him a little, but he could feel a million and one questions bubbling up inside of him. He could have probably picked his first a little more carefully.

“When can I take this off?” he asked, referring to the bandages on his arms, which were fast beginning to annoy him, even if he’d only had to deal with them for less than ten minutes. 

“Oh not for a while yet,” Mark chuckled, before he caught himself, and frowned, “Do you not remember what happened?”

Pierre shook his head bewildered, looking to Stoffel for guidance, but was met only with a grave expression on his face.

“I-…” then like someone lighting a match within his mind, the memories slowly revealed themselves to him, not fully, and certainly not all of them, but enough for a vague string of events to come back to him.

The creature which had jumped out at him, barrelling into his side, knocking him through the bathroom door of their next door neighbour’s apartment, splinters digging into his side, the air knocked out of him. The sound and sensation of plunging the knife into its throat. Him screaming at Charles to run, unsure if he even heard him. There had been more, he remembered that, too many to count. He could recall the feeling as he fell forwards through the broken glass of the window, tumbling onto the fire escape, burning pain running up his arms as he tore them open on the jagged shards. Then there was only the memory of half crawling up the path to Stoffel’s house, blood pouring from his arms, fading in and out of consciousness until he finally tumbled to the ground, out cold.

He just knew that’s where he had to go, that’s why he had to keep going, that’s where he had told Charles he would be, and he couldn’t leave his brother alone. Even if Stoffel wasn’t there, it was familiar and he hoped it would be safe. But here he was, miles and miles from Stoffel’s house, with no idea of how he had got there. 

That wasn’t what preoccupied him the most, his mind immediately went to his brother, feeling sick at the thought that it might have been him who had found him that way, passed out and covered in blood.

“Where’s Charles? Is he here?” he asked Stoffel, coughing into the back of his hand again, his throat still burning. His question was only met by silence, the kind that made his heart stop.

“Stoff where is he?” he asked, more urgently this time, trying to grasp onto his boyfriend’s shirt with his weak fingers, trying to make him understand how important this was, “He was supposed to be there, at your house. He was supposed to meet me there.”

His delirious mind was completely driven by the need to know if his little brother was okay. His heart thumped harder as his question went unanswered again. Mark was avoiding looking at him, while Stoffel’s eyes were only sad.

“Stoff, no,” he shook his head, gripping his t-shirt harder, feeling a hysterical laugh burst from his mouth, a maniacal noise that turned itself into a broken sob, “He’s not…”

“He wasn’t there Pear. I’m so sorry,” Stoffel said, stroking Pierre’s hair softly, sounding truly upset, and like he wanted to do anything but break this news.

“Did you go back to check?” he asked, almost shouting, his voice high and pitchy, feeling his hands begin to shake, and hot, stinging tears leak from the corners of his eyes.

“We did, we did. Listen Pierre you need to calm down, you’re exhausted and the medication hasn’t worn off yet,” Mark started, attempting to put a hand on Pierre’s arm, to soothe him.

“Oh god, no, no, no,” he moaned, pressing his hands into his eyes, unable to take any comfort as Stoffel pulled him into his chest again, feeling him shake in a way that told him he was crying softly too. The awful sound of Pierre’s gut wrenching cries filled the room, it was all he could hear; the grief tearing at his chest, like a physical pain his body didn’t know how to bear.

He was aware of Mark saying something to the two of them, but all he could think about was the smiling face of his brother, whom he still saw as a child in so many ways, whom he was supposed to take care of. He was the only person his brother had left, it wasn't supposed to be this way. Of all the awful scenarios that his disobedient imagination had assaulted him with, none of them ended with Charles gone, and never at Pierre's hand. As hard as he tried to forget, he could still remember his mother screaming down the phone, making Pierre promise that he would take care of them both, that he would keep them both safe. If the grief wasn't enough, the guilt certainly was, and Pierre felt he couldn't breathe, the present too terrible to move past, so unimaginably, unspeakably awful that it felt like the end of his world.

“I can give him some more sedative; the pain will just be making it worse. Only enough for a few hours, we’ll wake him in time for dinner,” he heard Mark say, and could feel Stoffel nod in response. There was a sharp stab on his upper arm, one of the only parts of skin that wasn’t covered by the colossal strapping, and almost instantly he could feel the energy leave him, like it was being sucked from him by some incredible force. He could do no more than weep weakly as the eventually faded from reality, and slipped into unconsciousness again.

When he woke several hours later Stoffel was still at his side, sat in a chair by the bed, his hand clutching Pierre’s. Feeling bone weary, drained both mentally and physically, Pierre tried to ignore the pain in his arms and his heart as he attempted to smile at his boyfriend, squeezing his hand tight. Feeling more lucid than he had when he’s woken earlier, but somehow worse for that, he saw for the first time how tired and aged Stoffel looked. Dark rings sat under his eyes, and his skin looked pale and drawn. He wondered what had happened in the weeks since he’d last seen him, when he’d been stuck in that god awful apartment with Charles.

The thought of his brother was like stab to his chest, and he struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill forth from him again. Trying to get a handle on his emotions, he sat up, grimacing as a shooting pain made its way up his arms, a pain he hadn’t been able to feel before when he’d been to confused and dazed to think clearly.

“Is he awake yet?” a familiar voice called from beyond the hallway, and the door opened a few seconds later to reveal Mitch, carrying a tray, his trademark grin plastered across his face. When he saw Pierre sitting up in bed the smile softened, and there was a look in his eyes that Pierre didn’t think he’d ever seen before. 

With the whirlwind speed he always seemed to move with, Mitch handed the tray over to Stoffel, throwing his arms around Pierre, hugging him tightly, practically jumping onto the bed in his haste. Still finding it difficult to move his arms, Pierre returned the hug as best he could.

“I’m so sorry P,” Mitch mumbled, sounding miserable, and clearly up to date one what had just happened minutes ago.

“Thank you,” Pierre whispered, swallowing the tide of emotion that rose up inside of him, determined not to lose control again.

“Mark sent up some dinner,” Mitch said pulling away after a lengthy hug, lifting up one of Pierre’s bandaged arms as he did so, “And good thing too, you’ve gotten so skinny.”

It was true, his poor rationing had meant eventually their portions had gotten very small indeed, and the weight had started to drop off his already slight frame. Stoffel had perched the tray on the bedside table, and handed Pierre the plate and cutlery, as he started to wolf down what seemed to be a shepherd’s pie. As he did so Mitch proceeded to give a run down of everything he had missed. Clearly talking helped him cope, and the distraction was welcome for Pierre.

“I wish you could have seen yourself when you showed up on Stoffel’s doorstep. Mate, you looked _awful_ , I actually thought you were dead when Mark carried you inside. You were just lucky we were at Stoff’s house at the time. If you’d come a couple of days earlier then you would have-,” at the point Mitch crudely made a slicing motion across his neck to illustrate his point.

“Why were you at Stoff’s house?” Pierre asked, swallowing a large mouthful so he could talk.

“Long story. But basically, we’d been staying at my flat since we saw what was going on on the news. Mark was down in South London when it all kicked off actually. He showed up about a week later, literally in his ambulance, I don’t know how he managed to drive it all the way there without drawing attention to himself. He’d seen it all go down, even some of the zombies up close-.”

“Wait a minute, zombies?” Pierre almost choked on his food, his eyes watering as he coughed. He had come face to face with several, and had seen them on the news, but somehow the word had never popped into his mind. It was too bizarre, too impossible.

“Yeah. _Zombies_. I know,” Mitch looked weirdly excited by this prospect, “They’re literal dead people come back to life. They call it a virus, but so far all we’ve figured out is that you can only contract it if they bite you, then you become like them. We don’t know how long it takes for it to set in, it could be seconds, or days. Mark reckons it’s a few minutes from what he’s seen.

 _Anyway_ , we were at Stoffel’s because some yobs broke into my building, looking for food and stuff. We got out of there pretty quickly, and Stoffel’s was a lot nearer than Mark’s. We were planning to move to Mark’s even before you turned up, it’s a lot quieter around here.”

Part of Pierre wanted to ask about other people they knew, but he didn’t think he could bear hearing the answers. There were so many things he wanted to know. But the prospect of the truth terrified him. Stoffel seemed to sense this, and also noticed how Mitch had run out of things to say, and had resorted to pulling threads from the blanket that Pierre was cocooned in. 

“Do you think you can stand? You’ve been out for days, getting up might do you some good,” Stoffel said, taking the plate from Pierre, who tried very hard to ignore the fact that he had said _days_. But that would explain his aching spine and stiff limbs.

Pierre nodded, suddenly feeling very eager to get up, barely giving Mitch a chance to hop off the bed before he tore off the covers, hauling himself to his feet. He swayed a little once he was upright, but once Stoffel had an arm wrapped around his waist, helping him along, the three of them managed to make their way down the stairs, Mitch leading the way.

They found Mark in the kitchen, sat at the dining table, an old fashioned looking radio in front of him, twisting and turning the dials, only looking up once Mitch took a seat next to him.

“I found it again,” he told the young man who had taken the seat next to him, before he looked up to see Stoffel and Pierre standing in the middle of the kitchen. He sent Pierre a sad kind of smile that only made him feel worse, knowing exactly why he was doing so. Though he could have probably done so himself, the dizziness having worn off, Pierre let Stoffel help him into one of the dining room chairs.

“When?” Stoffel asked, taking Pierre’s hand in his own, a gesture that anchored them both.

“About five minutes ago, but I lost it again,” Mark said, returning to fiddling with the radio, Mitch playing with the aerial, as though that would help, though Pierre very much doubted it would – even if he had next to no knowledge about how radio waves worked.

“Are you looking for the government radio announcements?” Pierre asked. As far as he was aware that was the only thing being broadcast over the airwaves anymore.

“Nah, something better,” Mitch said, a shine in his eyes as Mark finally batted his hands away from the antenna. Pierre just raised an eyebrow, looking at Stoffel to explain, trusting him to explain while Mitch would prefer to keep the dramatic tension. But it was Mark who answered.

“Before I found these two, me and Fernando – my shift partner – we kept picking up messages on our radios. Usually there’s nothing on there but stuff from the hospital. Eventually Nando figured out it was coordinates, he left me because he wanted to follow them. I stayed to find Mitch,” there was a look shared between the two men on the other side of the table, and Pierre felt that there was something deeper going on that he wasn’t privy to.

“Sometimes we can tune into it, but never long enough to get the all the numbers-,” Stoffel said but he was shushed quickly by Mitch, and Pierre looked up to see that Mark had raised his hand, asking for quiet. Dimly, through the crackle of static, he could just about hear a series of numbers being repeated, over and over, by some kind of automated machine. Mark scrambled around, pulling a scrap of paper and a pencil out of the drawer behind him, quickly scrawling down the message.

“Do we follow it?” Mitch asked, turning off the radio.

“Why not?” Mark said, shrugging. And Pierre felt an awful lot like he had been issued a challenge. He couldn’t think of anything that was holding them back. What was keeping them here? They had no one else to stay for. It was just the four of them. And following this might have made Pierre feel as though he was doing something, so he didn’t have to think about everything and everyone he had lost.

He could feel Stoffel stiffen beside him, silently making his uncertainty known. While the house had familiarity and comfort, it wouldn’t change things that had happened, and staying wouldn’t make anything better.

“Why not?” Pierre repeated, nodding.


End file.
